Courtly Love
by Cantharide
Summary: A sight really can change a life... like that reader Sarek saw on a bench that evening of 2228, in that park of San Francisco: before it happened, Sarek never believed in love (especially not at first sight), neither in destiny. But what does logic mean, when you're on an illogical planet? TRANSLATION from my French fanfiction "Jeu courtois".
1. The End of Logic

**So, here's my first attempt at translating something from French into English. This fanfiction was originally written and published by me under the title of Jeu Courtois (literally: "courtly game", but I think "Courtly Love" sounds better… so, "Courtly Love" will be the title of the English version) in July, 2013. English isn't my mother language, so please, if you see something odd, tell me and explain me why: it only will help me to improve my English "skills", and I'd be extremely grateful to you.**

**I hope you'll enjoy this narrative and wish you lots of pleasure while reading.**

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San Francisco, July 2228.

Sarek, Ambassador of Vulcan on Earth, left the buildings of the Federation and breathed for the first time the air of an earthly metropolis. Around him, a beautiful park, covered of greenery; a longer way away, the San Francisco Bay, overhung by the Golden Gate Bridge. Birds were singing on the trees. A huge blue sky, without any cloud. "Fascinating", said the Ambassador, losing himself in the contemplation of the landscape. He already saw everything of it on a screen, but the real-life sight was worth it. The Earth was full of life, all painted in cold colors, with water covering two thirds of its surface… For short, it was all Vulcan wasn't. And this was enough to make the stay interesting.

Sarek went further to the most surprising part of the landscape: the ocean. He only looked briefly at the Golden Gate Bridge (after all, there were lots of similar bridges over the huge cracks on Vulcan, and building them was a child's game), then he went to the shore of the bay. Not too close: as a Vulcan, he wasn't really fond of the aqueous element, especially when it had to be measured in miles-cube, and even less when he was aware of the flow's high speed and the stones' slipperiness… All in all, logic was telling him veeery loudly that the people who wanted to swim there were really rash. And he didn't consider himself reckless.

After spending a long time watching the ocean (and the sunset), Sarek took the road for his quarters, hesitated quite a bit when he reached the door and went back: he wasn't tired at all. More accurately, the strong need he felt to discover the world he was going to live in for the next few months reduced all his tiredness to a ridiculously low fact. He went through the park again – cadets from Starfleet were slowly invading it – and saw, on a bench, a really young woman reading: her book was almost finished, only two or three pages left. She stood up, put her book back into her purse and left.

Since, Sarek met his destiny – even if he didn't believe in it. He felt like seeing that woman at least once a day, in many different places. The first time, it was in Chinatown: she was crossing the road, a bag in her hand. Then, he saw her sitting at a terrace with three other girls of her age. And so on, and so forth, in many places of the town. Obviously, this wasn't logical. In fact, it was really unlikely. Fortunately, Sarek found a satisfying explanation: he scarcely saw the Reader. She was average-tall, skinny, with long brown hair. Lots of human beings were fitting that description, without being her. Maybe he was just mistaking… He only needed a few more time to be able to distinguish all those women, then he would recognize having been confused by his new situation, and all of this would be over.

It didn't seem very difficult.

By the way, why did he see her, not any other woman? She had nothing special, she was only a human girl amongst others… Something must have struck him, but what? Her attitude on the bench, when she was reading, maybe? Or the elegance of her gait? Well! All of this was completely irrational.

Admittedly. Absurd. But it carried on.

Sarek ended up persuading himself that, being on an illogical planet, with illogical people, it was kind of logical to always bump into the same woman, every time he wanted to do some field ethnological survey. After all… why not?

He raised an eyebrow. Indeed: why not?

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**So, that's it, folks! Hope you enjoyed it… and especially, hope that I haven't hurt your linguistic feelings too much. ;) The French version of that story already comprises 5 chapters (and isn't over at all), but it takes me a long time to translate from my mother language to English, so I really don't know when I'll be able to post the next one. So, see you soon (or not-that-soon, but as soon as I can)!**


	2. The Experiences of Sarek

**OK, gotta admit it, I really like translating this text, soo... even if I told marylouleach, who reviewed the first chapter (an example you should follow!) I wouldn't be able to upload this second chapter before this weekend, here it is! I have to say I made some changes to the story when translating, essentially details (e.g. in the french text, Sarek raises a shoulder, not an eyebrow, but the eyebrow was... more vulcan?) and syntax, because all the French ways to say some things aren't really elegant in English. So! Hope there aren't too many mistakes here, and ENJOY!**

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If there was a single thing Sarek wasn't really able to manage, it was the art of speaking without saying anything, in other words, speaking quite informally with humans – more generally, with non-Vulcans. And if he neglected to study something, it certainly was the art of beginning a small-talk with a young lady in an informal context. He had to admit, the risks of this happening were not really high, for the ambassador he was… at least, in theory. But there was a huge gap between theory and practice…

The more the time went, the more Sarek felt the necessity – logical necessity, just as eating, drinking or breathing – of talking with the Reader. He needed to understand exactly why he kept meeting her on his way. He needed to abolish the hazard. Following the precepts of logic and science, he began with opening a bibliography entitled Earthly Sociology, then read lots of papers about the art of small-talk with human beings, about young Earthlings' hobbies, about social habits of earthly women (less than thirty years) in town, and so on, but he didn't find anything efficient about the subject he was interested in. Well, it wasn't a big deal: this would give him the occasion of contributing to the scientific field of ethnology, after all.

Given that books weren't enough, Sarek took the risk – with lots of precautions – to talk about it with human colleagues. He wanted to obtain some information directly from the source. But to the question "How would you begin an informal talk with a young person?", the answer always was "By talking to her. It's logical. Didn't you think about it, Sarek?" And, despite all his rational attitude, he felt like they were really making fun of him. That's why he always answered that he thought about it, but was wondering if there were a particular protocol to do it, or if the Vulcan way was sufficient. The average answer to this was that "good evening" was often enough. And, because the human beings weren't the most discreet people, and Sarek's question wasn't that anodyne, one began to say weird things about a cold ambassador, already father of a son, and a mysterious young woman. When people talked to him about it, Sarek only raised the eyebrow: ridiculous. His question was only a scientific one. One gave him back a smile, and he really didn't know how to understand it. Earthlings were a lot more interesting than he initially thought.

The two previous methods having only brought useless results – not to say they failed – to his research, Sarek decided that he could give a try to the empirical method, even if it wasn't very logical. Therefore, he spent some hours every day wandering in San Francisco's streets, hearing discretely (Vulcan hear had its advantages) the conversation between young people, particularly the way guys were initiating a conversation with a young woman. Then, he classified those techniques in three patterns: the first one was fascinatingly rude and perfectly inefficient; moreover, it only applied to human beings from a different social class than the Reader's. The second one only seemed to work with people who already knew each other, but was still interesting. The last one… well, best to forget about it, as it implied too much alcohol and noise. None of these patterns would fit to his actual situation. Maybe he hadn't observed the right specimen. Maybe his situation wasn't a frequent one. Or a difficult to observe one. He had a lot of hypothesis. But the problem was still there.

Sarek still came to interesting and logical conclusions. One of them was, he could read books or spy the others as much as he wanted, he would never find the way to set an appropriate context of talking with the Reader, because he wasn't close to her enough. Therefore, he decided to begin with this. Solving the riddle piece after piece, slowly and efficiently, was a better idea than trying to solve the whole thing at once. The only place where he was pretty sure to find the Reader almost every evening was the bench in the park. He went there, strolled a bit between the trees. She wasn't there yet. She won't be long. He saw her coming on the way, sitting on the bench. He waited a little bit more, then sat on the other end. She looked at him, her eyes leaving quietly the book she was reading (Hoffman's Tales), and said "Good evening, Sir", to which he answered with a "Good evening, Miss" quite cold. To put up a front, he switched his PADD on and read some lines. More exactly, fifty-three times the same paragraph. The silence did not seem to bother the Reader, caught in her book. It wouldn't have to bother him, neither. But it did. For the fist time in his live, Sarek didn't know what to say.

When he finally found an idea, Sarek saw with astonishment that… the Reader wasn't alone anymore. Three girls of her age were talking with her, in a bustling way. He looked on his PADD again, not understanding how he managed not to notice this earlier. The girl with the highest voice said: "Come on, Manda! Or we'll bother that man." The Reader answered, in a lowest and more clear-cut tone: "You're right, Missy. Let's go." A vibrating in the bench indicated Sarek that she stood up, then he heard their footsteps when they were leaving. He read three more times his paragraph, without being able to keep anything of it in mind. He wasn't even able to admit, that this first attempt to have a small-talk with the Reader ended up so pitifully.

Not that pitifully, he suddenly thought. Her name was Manda. Certainly a nickname, or a diminutive: human beings almost never use their real name in informal context, often use their surname in formal context, so... Her name was Manda…

Sarek went back to his lodgings. And, to get over with this "Manda" prowling in his head, he meditated.

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**Well, back to the author's notes: the third chapter is really hard to translate, because of the really loose way of talking some character use. Anyway, I'll do my best. ^^**


	3. The Evening of Amanda

**Hi everyone! Third chapter's here, even if the translation isn't always close to the French original version (I've lots of things to learn about informal ways of talking in English). Anyway, enjoy!**

**A special and warm thanks to marylouleach, Aashlee Elizabeth and maryjanek for their support, and to Vulcanlover12 for following the story. Hope I won't disappoing any of you!**

**And well... here are the first "author's footnotes", which I use when I think some precisions are needed (especially because some of the allusions I'm doing in the narrative come from French literature) or when I keep French sentences and phrases in the translation. Nothing really important, but in case you wonder... :)**

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It's now time for us to meet this woman, mysterious and fascinating enough to amaze a Vulcan ambassador. Manda –as she was usually called, her real name being Amanda – was without any doubt everything Sarek wasn't, could never have been and will never be, to say it in a few words. She was a free spirit, independent, heir of almost all the dissident ways of thinking the Earth had known for at least a millenary, inherently illogical, and liked every kind of phantasmagoria and was obstinately dreamy. Also, a hothead, but tempered with a fundamental kindness and a real zest for life. A child's soul, quick to fly to the highest heights and to fall into the darkest deeps… All in all, a swift imagination, who only needed two or three artefacts to believe in magic. Someone who was trying to make her casual life better by changing it into a dream, who made a scene out of a road or out of a chamber, an opera out of a karaoke, a circus out of a campus. Someone who loved to make her life more and more beautiful…

Well, Amanda Grayson wasn't _that_ fanciful. She was still able to distinguish dreams from real life, despite her strong desire to put those one into these. She considered imagination as a good way to overrule a gloomy reality, and to find happiness where there only was a tasteless, colorless pleasure. This explained her penchant for dreaming as much as she could, by reading books, disguise herself, playing or partying. Amanda Grayson's life was quite full, perhaps too full, not to allow spleen. She spent half of her time in libraries, the other half wandering in wild landscapes, kept some moments for sleep and others for her friends. We met her at one of her friend's place, sitting oddly on the floor, the right arm on her knee and the left hand taking homemade crisps out of a bowl, looking at the notes she took with a smile.

"… Enter the tower, darlings! Follow the creature!" Missy was perfect when embodying a mischievous narrator. She hid herself behind a screen made out of paper, just like a spy behind a curtain. Some seconds later, she burst of laughter and took a bag of candies. "Come on, who'll volunteer? You're just gonna get your face ripped of, nothing serious! Formulate your strategy, girls! Or…" Her thumb went along her throat, in a suggestive way, and she said something like "squeak!"

The three other girls gathered together and talked during some time, as their friend looked at them in a carnivorous way. They were at the end of a RPG-scenario, it was time to fight the evil. But this one was able to fly, and the story was set in the twenties. 1820s'. Even if investigators dressed in top-hats, redingotes, fancy canes and gaiters were nice, they didn't have a lot of technological devices and couldn't do lots of acrobatics. What should they do? Follow the sewers? Missy probably anticipated this, 'cause it was the usual solution picked up by players when it was time to enter some kind of seedy place. She just couldn't avoid setting some disturbing creatures there! And, by the way, the sewers… not really an elegant place, uh? Entering the tower by the roofs was impossible: the characters weren't able to fly. The windows were only loopholes: hard to get in through them, and escalading the building would cost a lot of time. Manda proponed the most improbable thing: entering the tower… through the door. Simply. Following her logic (but did I say her logic was… an unusual one?), the enemies are so afraid of getting attacked, that they protect every single way of getting in, except the most obvious one… So, her idea was to take them by surprise.

"I open the door and get in, Missy! she said.

– And, I… Well, not that I don't trust Manda, but her strategy is so really aberrant, that I prefer escalading. Sorry, Manda, but seriously… getting in through the door… Would you even knock, to be perfectly visible?

– Foreseeable things always are the most visible. I'm sorry for you. You'll get attacked.

– Foreseeable things, my eye! Did you forget who's mastering the game for two months? Missy knows you, my dear, and you're the one who'll get killed. _Tire la chevillette, la bobinette cherra!_" **(1)**

Our friend's interlocutor's name was Mary. She usually was considered to be the mastermind of the group, the most logical and cultivated one. And the less original one, would add Manda with a wink. Besides, Mary was a nice young person, sometimes a tomboy, the kind of person who loves adventure in real life, but won't take any risk in game. The third player, strongly hesitating between the two strategies, was called Meg. She was the most patient of them all, the less impressive one, but not to the point of being invisible or being reduced to a me-too. She eventually chose the window-strategy.

"OK, you cowards, we'll meet on the roofs… Or I'll find pieces of your hats on the ground! Banzaï! shouted Manda. Missy: I open the door, I get in running, and I look around.

– Nothing worth seeing. Roll the dice, for perception.

– 93. I rock it!

– OK, you hear kind of a soft noise coming from the cellar, but you don't know what it could be. Mary?

– I climb. How much time do I need to reach the loophole?

– 7 minutes.

– OK. I get in. What do I see?

– You're on the first floor. You see a lot of blood, or something like this, on the floor. Meg?

– I follow her.

– Same for you. But there's a guy behind the blood, and he's far from bleeding, and he carries a saber. And I can tell you he's not there for tourism!

– H…eck! grumbled Mary. I suppose we have the privilege of launching the battle?

– Yep, but he's not really patient, so… don't last too long!

– Haha! Told you! said a triumphant Manda.

– Oh, shut up, dear, there's kind of a gargoyle behind you, checking out your neck… I think you should unsheathe, before it eats you. Did you really think I wasn't able to anticipate your twisted ideas? Or, that I would let the door free from anything? Not in your wildest dreams, dear! But, before we start the final assault, I suggest eating something more substantial than crisps and sweets. One does not simply assault a tower filled with creatures from Cthulhu's myth without being full."

The four girls stood up and went to the table. Missy, who preferred cooking than ordering food, put a saucepan on the stove and garnished a pizza before putting it in the oven. Then, she took drinks and caught up her friends around the table.

"Eh! Manda, did you see that Vulcan, a bit earlier?

– Why do you ask?

– I already saw him a couple of times. And by his immersed look when we came…

– Stop it there! I told you, Missy, I don't need a boyfriend, especially if it's a perfectly unknown guy, especially if it's a Vulcan, just because you saw him once or twice!

– Calm down, darling. It's so sad, you're 24, you're done with studies…

– For two months.

– … And you're eternally single. Yet, you're a beautiful girl, and smart, and you could bring happiness to a handsome, nice man… or an ugly, despicable one, it doesn't matter, as long as you love him. Why are you against living with someone?

– I'm not against it. I just prefer being single, at least for the moment… And, seriously, why the hell would a guy go out with a girl who spends her whole lifetime buried in books and movies, who loves old science-fiction, but never went into space…

– Maybe the Vulcan. »

The two other girls laughed, while Missy took the pizza out of the oven, and while Manda opened her third can of beer. She really loved her friends, but sometimes, they had the knack of getting on her nerves… Why would they always find her a boyfriend, particularly an alien, to "push her out of her nest", as they said…

"So, you want me to go out with a guy who, besides being an alien without any feeling, really looks like the attaché of an ambassador?

– Why do you ask?

– Because the Federation's buildings are nearby? Come on. Would I really have to spend my whole life in a spatial shuttle, far from my small planet, accompanied by a cold guy, quiet as the grave, who would only talk with me about the Federation's problems?

– You're caricaturing. But yeah, let it go. It was a simple suggestion."

They began eating, and the conversation went on other subjects. Manda tried to remember how the Vulcan's face looked like, and noticed with relief that she wasn't able to do it. Missy's stupid, crazy suggestions would soon drive her mad, she thought. Besides…

"Look, Missy, your opinion is irrelevant, really. A Vulcan doesn't feel. Then, he can't be in love. That's it!

– Since when are you aware of those kind of stuff about aliens?" asked Meg, astonished. Manda never paid attention to space and its inhabitants, judging there were enough things to learn on her own planet.

"Hey, don't go too far, Vulcan's absence of feelings is famous. But that's all I know: unlike you, Meg, I didn't specialize in exoliterature, neither in xenolinguistics like you did, Missy. I chose the old earthly literature and focused on Anglo-Saxon literature. And now, in a month, I'll be teaching the few things I know to students who don't care. Nothing beautiful in sight, uh? I could deserve better. But I don't want to. I don't want to teach on another planet, I want to stay here. Therefore, I choose an unremarkable career, hoping I won't be too disappointed. Where there's life, there's hope, they say…

– We know, dear, said Mary. And it's a good thing: we'll be together here, in San Francisco, for a while… I can't imagine how life would be, without our roleplaying games, our ways to party… It's weird, we're workers, now…

– Clearly it is… Our lives will change a lot… Your PhD, Meg, and your research, your travels… Your work as assistant in communications for the Federations, Missy… And your work as editor, Mary… And I'll be a teacher… We should drown our student-life in wine, don't you think?

– Agreed! I suggest… a fancy thing. With literature. Earthly literature. And alcohol. At the _Last Pub Before the End of the World _**(2)**, because it's the end of a world, at least for us. Who's in?"

They all agreed and talked about an existential question: what will this fancy, literary thing allowing alcohol, exactly? They had a lot of ideas, but ran out of pizza…

"Hey, girls, don't you have some terrifying creatures to kill?" asked Missy, going back to her screen.

They finished their game, and didn't talk about the Vulcan for the rest of the evening.

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**(1) From Perrault's _Little Red Riding Hood_. This sentence refers to ancient ways of opening a door: when you pull the chevillette, you unlock it by allowing the bobinette to fall. I didn't translate it, because I really have no clue on how I'd say it in English… So, I hope this explanation will do the thing.**

**(2) Any fan of _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _here? ^^**


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